First lets start with Lamar Odom who everyone has started revering has the second coming. Lets face it without Gasol to the real game pressure off him this guy is flat weak. The Rocket game turned on his missed free throws with 4 minutes left period. Rockets went on a 14 to 2 run right after.He fails to concentrate in crucial situations. He misses easy opportunities for 3 pt plays when fouled because of this same lack of concentration. Jackson should be all over him and that is his weakness. Lack of intensity.

Speaking of Jackson, who i m sure you ll all say has all those championships so i have to be wrong, why did he leave Fisher out of the game so long when he had a huge part in getting us back in the game. He sometimes fails to go with who is getting the job done. I love Sasha and Jordan but sometimes its Fish who is doing the job in certain games and yet he leaves him out in the 4th sometimes.

Jordan and Sasha s weaknesses are youth plain and simple. They get enamoured with the 3 pointer and it kills us when, like today, we were in the penalty for the last 9 minutes of the game. Plus they get lost on defense.

Honestly, this kind of thread pisses me off... it does not take any consideration of how the Lakers team was built to play at full or even normal strength and how significant and material injuries have impacted their game strategy and ability to execute on the court at an elite level.

Sorry if it sounds harsh, but it struck a nerve... nothing personal please.

First, nothing personal at all, i know we both are Laker fans and mine isn t the only perspective.

However, you made a flat statement about how i didnt take in to consideration how injuries have impacted how we were built to play at full strength without actually backing up your statement. So i would defend myself but i m not sure against what yet. Care to elaborate?

SoCal means that Odom isn't meant to be a #2 option. He has been playing really good as the #3 option behind Kobe and Gasol. Lamar plays well when he doesn't have pressure to do one thing. He can fill up the entire stat sheet and doesn't do well when called upon to focus on 1 thing more heavily (usually scoring).

Jordan and Sasha are 3 pt shooters for the team. Most of the time Kobe/Gasol has the ball and they camp behind the line and knock down 3pt shots. They have been shooting pretty well. As much as I like Sasha, I hate it when he has to dribble; He is a catch and shoot guy.

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If anything needs to be complained about its the lack of calls we got in this game. Kobe was attacking the basketball more than he has in a while and going into the 4th he has 1 trip to the line.

i'm with you so cal.. why is odoms missed free throw the key turn around.. how about kobe's going 0-5 in crunch time before he finally made one? people that call out one player are missing the boat...
i'm so tired of people blaming one guy other than kobe...
lets look at kobe's numbers today
11-33, 04 from 3 pt land that's 33% shooting, 2 assists 3 turnovers and 2-4 from the free throw line
THATS unexectable for a guy that wants to be the team leader yet i know laker fans will pin this loss and others

once again
kobe
11 of 33 0-4 on 3 pt= fg%33 24 points
2 assists
7 rebounds
2-4 from the line
3 turnovers
0 blocks or steals
2-4 from the line

Lamar played a solid game, how on earth can you pin this on him? As GTS pointed out 7-10, 17 points, 11 rebounds, 3-6 ft, 2 ass, 2 blocks and only 1 turnover. another very efficient game. Thats insane that you say his missed ft's at the 4 min mark was the difference.

This game proves even more how he's improved this year even with the injuries. In the past Odom would have tried to do too much and taken a lot of bad shots and forced things more gaining him more turnovers and a poor shooting %.

Instead he played within himself and had another efficient game without Gasol out there. That is all we can ask of Lamar. If your expecting the guy to become an allstar and single handedly carry the team he isn't that guy.

These are the things you should be more worried about.

1. Team defense. how on earth does Alston get open 3 after open 3 after starting the game 3-4 from 3pt range and you let him finish with 8-11? Again we played the screen roll horribly. Too many open 3's and too many layups.

2. Bench play. There is no reason why Houston's bench should have been able to beat the crap of LA's bench. That was embarrassing.

3. Turiaf got himself in foul trouble, which forced Mbenga to play more than was planned. If any one guy today really hurt this team offensively it was Mbgenga. You can tell he just isn't ready from prime minutes in a big game. Still I don't blame him as he is the 6th option at center behind Bynum, Gasol, Turiaf, Mihm, and Odom. Injuries are part of the game and sometimes you have to go to option #6.

4. We got out rebounded 46-40

5. team shot selection. The Lakers settled for too many outside shots and did not exploit matchups with Odom, Walton, and Vlad.

6. Kobe shot them out of this game in the 4th. I used to be a big Kobe basher when he started jacking up shots when not giving his team a chance. I thought today his teammates just didn't have it. I feel he ran the offense and then in the 4th just tried to do it by himself. As stated however, I think his teammates didn't have it today. So again I can't bash him too much for trying to do it all himself. Battier played a great defensive game.

7. Why did we not go at McGrady all game long and force the guy to play defense and perhaps get him into foul trouble? We were very lucky he was 1-10 in the first 3 qrts.

8. Houston had LONG offensive outages and we did not capitalize enough.

9. I'll even say we had a little bad luck in respect to Houston's 3 pt shooting. They finished 12-26 (46%) when they are a 34% 3pt shooting team. Alston had a career day from the land of 3.

EDIT 10. we botched too many fast break attempts.

Now I want you to debate with me how Lamar's play should be anywhere in this top 10 list.

Lamar is the weakness? He had a good game..
Now Kobe.. well he had a bad one.
Damn 11 for 33 is bad especially during crunch time.. Kobe killed us.
It was a game where he was forced to shoot. He tried to overcompensate and the defense tried to key on Mcgrady too much.
It was just a tough loss against a team playing extremely well. A team loss.
No one really to blame as we are the most boned team in terms of injured horses in the stable.

Had they been without ming and Scola as we were without Gasol and Bynum..it would have been a different story. They just are playing great ball and we have the injury bug like a mofo.

I would love to see our team at full strength and gelled together against a top notch team.
Still Hats off to the Rockets for doing what they have done without Ming.

I hope Bynum does get back and in form next to Gasol.. Good luck trying to beat us then.

Kobe is playing way too many minutes lately and it worries me. Second thing that worries me is perimeter defense. Fisher and Farmar are not doing a good job. Seems like every guard has a career night against the lakers.
Has anyone else noticed the way Fisher plays lately? Passing and shooting way off. Confidence problem? Was happy the way he played in the beginning of the season,now I remember why the Lakers didn't re-sign him 4 years ago.
One more thing,the lakers need to get Radmanovich involved. He is a good player and I was waiting for him to start going yesterday,just had the one 3 pointer though. Can't wait for Gasol and Bynum to come back because that will open Vlade up big time.
Also KEEP Lamar!! Such a great player!! All the little thing that guy does. Just hope he'll find a way to get his free throw confidence back...

Kobe is playing way too many minutes lately and it worries me. Second thing that worries me is perimeter defense. Fisher and Farmar are not doing a good job. Seems like every guard has a career night against the lakers.
Has anyone else noticed the way Fisher plays lately? Passing and shooting way off. Confidence problem? Was happy the way he played in the beginning of the season,now I remember why the Lakers didn't re-sign him 4 years ago.
One more thing,the lakers need to get Radmanovich involved. He is a good player and I was waiting for him to start going yesterday,just had the one 3 pointer though. Can't wait for Gasol and Bynum to come back because that will open Vlade up big time.
Also KEEP Lamar!! Such a great player!! All the little thing that guy does. Just hope he'll find a way to get his free throw confidence back...

Just my 2 cents...
Fire away

Fisher is playing the same as he did earlier in the season except that he isn't driving to the hole as much lately. He's been consistantly playing about half the PG minutes.

His shooting has dropped of a bit, but you had to expect that since he was shooting so high over his career numbers. He's still shooting a very good 41.2% from the land of 3.

Everyones play has dropped off a bit lately. Vlad disappeared again, Sasha has been off a a bit, Turiaf keeps passing when he's at point blank range. All these little things normally don't get noticed, but when they all happen together along with injuries everything seems magnified. Ups and Downs are the part of the game.

Players need to step up to make up for that void in the middle and it's not happening right now.

This is the toughest 4 game road trip of the season so it doesn't bother me if we struggle here.

Look at PHX, 3 games everyone was ready to declare them dead and then they ran off 3 straight and are one game behind the Lakers.

With such a tight race all these games are going to be magnified.

The most important thing for the Lakers right now is to make the playoffs and get healthy. They need to be able to get at least 40 min a night out of Gasol and Bynum combinded in the playoffs if they are to fight for a title this season.

i think some laker fans are actually more worried about this than the lakers themselves.. lol

don't forget the lakers run two different styles of play there's the basic triangle that's been the staple of the team for years

this year phil installed the up tempo game to take advantage of the youth movment off the bench...

when ever a starter goes down, you take a player from one system and install him into another, it takes time for the adjustments. not only do you have the starting rotation changed and a new player there, but now the bench needs to learn to play with their new lineup... it alwasy takes the team a few games and practices to sort it out.
the problem is magnified because this time of year players have tired legs, nagging aches and pains so practice time isn't as involved as it needs to be to integrate all the players into new roles.